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Viral Marketing Initiatives

Viral marketing strategies are never a guarantee of “going viral.” Except for the few outliers that hit the jackpot and achieve viral unintentionally, creating viral content is hard work.

However, certain principles can be utilized to increase the likelihood of virality (or buy you more lottery tickets as it were).

Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile from Pexels

1. Visuals

Of the many types of content that exist in the digital space, the kind that most often goes viral is visual content. Visual content is engaging, easy to understand and remember, and has the potential for emotional connection. The key point here is the ease of comprehension and recall. If content can be easily remembered, it will be talked about, shared, and promoted more often. Content cannot go viral if no one is sharing or talking about it. The rise of social media and the existence of viral, social content is evidence enough of the power of visual content.

2. Emotion

Marketing expert Neil Patel constantly references the importance of emotional engagement when creating and utilizing marketing content. A study by Buzzsumo found that content which invoked high emotional arousal was much more likely to go viral than content that was unable to provoke any emotional response. This also means that positive content is more likely to go viral since emotions such as happiness, awe, and amusement are more stimulating than negative ones. The impact of the Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign on viewers and participants was highly emotional because the content was relevant and personal. It’s no surprise the campaign went viral.

A study by Buzzsumo breaks down the percentage of different emotions evoked by digital content

3. Choice of Platform

Viral content doesn’t need all the eyeballs, just the right eyeballs. For content to go viral, it needs to be integrated into its platform of the initial release. This requires an understanding of how the platform works, the types of content that do well on the platform, and the target audience. Gary Vaynerchuck loves TikTok because it is not as saturated by content as other social platforms. This makes TikTok a great platform for potentially viral content because the competition is lower, there is less content vying for eyeballs, and a boost from an ad spend will be much more effective.

@calvinklein

Nas wears Calvin. Heron Preston for Calvin Klein. See more at the link in bio. #mycalvins

♬ original sound – CALVIN KLEIN
Nas wears Calvin Tik Tok video has little customer engagement

A great example is Calvin Klein. The brand has a ton of marketing and financial power but coupled with a lack of understanding of platform engagement, its current TikTok campaign has not been a viral success. Even with celebrities promoting content and products, Calvin Klein has yet achieve notoriety and garner the likes of other more intuitive brands. In time, CK may still prove it is a relevant player in the Tik Tok space. 

4. Culturally Relevant

Most viral content is not evergreen, but it is relevant. Viral = trending. Trends rise and fall, so understanding what trends are “in” increases the chances of creating content that will rise to the top. Chipotle “gets” its customers, what they want to see on social, and how they engage on different platforms. From the #GuacDance TikTok campaign for National Avocado day to the annual “Boorito” offer for Halloween, Chipotle understands when and how to make an entrance!

@brittany_broski

the duality of man. On oct 31 u can get a burrito for $4 if u come in costume after 3pm. EAT UP MY BABIES!!! #Boorito @chipotle #ad

♬ Strange Affair – Ronald Stein
UGC by Brittany Broski reaches thousands for Chipotle’s #boorito campaign

5. Optimization

Apart from the content itself, viral posts need to be optimized for success. This means utilizing relevant hashtags if applicable to the platform. Optimization of keywords and other SEO tactics that can be applied to content-seeking virality should also be used. Generating creative content is important to gaining viral status; however, optimizing content is never a bad move in the digital space, regardless of your intentions for the content.

Future Implications

Photo of social media applications on phone by Tracy Le Blanc from Pexels

The social media landscape is in a constant state of change. This means marketers must stay on top of trends and industry developments to continue affecting results. 

Audiences

As more people engage in more ways in the digital space, marketers need to understand who their target audience is and how their needs can best be met. Both elements have changed with the introduction of digital marketing and social media. For example, Millennials and Gen Z are now the most active users of social media and have vastly different demands from their digital brands than other demographics. 

Photo of Millennial girls taking selfie by Kampus Production from Pexels

Millennials crave a personalized experience that seamlessly crosses platforms. Gen Z cares more about the origin of products and the stories behind a brand. Despite having less money to spend than other demographic groups, both Millennials and Gen Z audiences will spend more for quality of service and experience. 

For brands, this means that a presence across social platforms is important for survival. Not only that, but marketing initiatives must be story-driven and experience-based, catering to where and how younger audiences engage with social content. Adopting Tik Tok is a great strategy to reach younger demographics with story-driven, personality-rich content. Video is an easy medium to convey such emotions and has risen in power over the last few decades. Therefore, utilizing video across platforms would also be wise. Will this cause an increase in spending on content and content creators? Probably. Will it be worth it? If utilized correctly, then definitely

Social Media Examiner gives tips for growth on Tik Tok platform

Finally, integrating the customer experience across social, digital, and physical platforms is a great way to engage the audiences that grew up expecting such streamlining of brand engagement. As technology continues to advance and consumers become more comfortable with the integration of social media and engagement technologies in their everyday lives, audiences will continue to change. The baseline expectation for brands is a presence on all social media platforms. With the introduction of video content and the new needs of younger audiences, marketers must change tactics to fit the change in human behavior. 

Technology

The other great influencer of change is technology. Technology always seems to be ahead of humanity, making it a great influencer in how humanity’s engagement with it has changed. As technology develops, culture changes to adapt. And as technology becomes more advanced, more tools become available for use in creative and integrated digital marketing campaigns. Technology and human development have created a chicken and egg situation where one makes a significant move forward that the other adapts and harnesses so both grow together. 

A great example is the introduction of Stories on Instagram. As audiences demanded a more personalized experience with brands and a brand “face” to engage with, platforms started using existing video technology in their applications. By integrating video content options, social platforms were able to appease the demands of their audiences and provide brands an optimized tool to better reach their customers. Instagram has grown its video content from short stories that give current updates and engagement opportunities to IGTV, a full-service, semi-long-form video uploading service for in-depth video content.

Social Media Examiner video discussing the use of Instagram features like Stories and IGTV to affect brand growth

For brands, the advancement of technology means staying on top of developments in the social and technology sectors. What tools are being offered by social platforms? Are all of them being utilized and optimized? Are resources being allocated to learn, train, and hire professionals experienced in social media and technology engagement and integration? If the internal and external tools offered by social platforms and third-party digital services are not being used to their fullest extent, this is a great place for new and growing brands to start.

Moving Ahead

Social media is only going to continue growing. The trick is to understand how and why audiences continue to use such platforms. That information will help marketers more effectively reach customers where they already are in the digital space. Information is power. If marketers gather the required information about the continued development of humanity and technology, integrating the two to affect business success is just a matter of applying learned principles and testing theories.

Differentiation: The Battle of the Roast

Starbucks vs Kaladi Brothers Coffee

            One of the most important components of social media marketing is differentiation. Differentiation is the element of uniqueness or ability to set a company apart from its competitors. Applied to marketing strategy, differentiation is the ability of a brand to create a unique and memorable customer experience across platforms. Two companies that use social media very differently to market similar products are Starbucks and Kaladi Brothers Coffee.

The Starbucks Approach

  The Starbucks brand has become synonymous with fast, efficient service that emphasizes the customer experience. Starbucks’ mission is to “inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time” with goals of “creating a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome. Acting with courage, challenging the status quo…Delivering our very best in all we do, holding ourselves accountable for results. We are performance-driven, through the lens of humanity”.

            With this in mind, the brand’s strategic focus is building and maintaining a strong brand community with loyal customers. Metrics to measure community engagement and brand loyalty include top of mind, link clicks, likes, comments, shares, and brand mentions. Such metrics can inform the creation of more targeted and valuable content.

The Power of Visuals

            Starbucks is active across most social platforms where it focuses on the promotion of visually engaging, product and experience-focused content. Starbucks occasionally features employee profiles and actively participates in holiday trends and cultural shifts like the increase in awareness for diversity, equity, and inclusion. However, much of its Instagram feed is filled with product photos and user-generated content (UGC). The brand has taken advantage of video content using Instagram’s Reels and IGTV features. YouTube delves into the history of the company and offers coffee how-to’s using short and long-form content. 

Starbucks Product Photo
Starbucks User-Generated Content

Video & UGC

            Video is the most effective medium to communicate with consumers. The application of this knowledge in a social strategy means Starbucks is keenly aware of its target audience’s wants and needs. The brand knows where to find its engaged audience and understands how to create content that consumers find valuable on each platform. The integration of UGC puts customers front and center, offering them the chance to engage directly with Starbucks for customer support, reviews, and community-building opportunities. The depth of Starbucks’ understanding of its target customer offers it the chance to truly inspire its followers while delivering the most valuable content possible to build an ever-stronger relationship with its loyal brand community. This fact alone makes the Starbucks model highly unique and effective.

Kaladi Brothers Coffee

    Kaladi Brothers Coffee (KBC), a coffee roaster founded in Alaska in 1984, began as one small coffee cart. The brand has grown to over 200 employees with national distribution and 17 locations. KBC’s vision is to “be the standard by which all other coffees are judged” with the strategic goal of acting as a catalyst for community. The spirit of KBC’s values is similar to that of Starbucks’, but the use of social media to advance those goals is vastly different. 

The Power of the Human Face

            Kaladi Brothers is focused mainly on social platforms that promote two-way communication with audiences like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Each of these platforms is used by KBC to communicate directly with customers to address customer service, answer questions, and share UGC. The brand’s content consists mainly of local partnership announcements and content that focuses on the human experience. The brand differentiates itself through its deep connection to the Alaskan community. Content across platforms focuses on people and their experiences with one another and with Kaladi products over pure, product promotion. The attraction to the brand comes from a yearning to join the tightly knit community that KBC was born out of and continues to develop. Its efforts to continuously build community relationships in person and online help to achieve the brand’s goal of becoming a catalyst for community.

Takeaways

            Much can be learned from both brands. It is important to keep in mind the difference in scale and scope of each and how that impacts community development strategies. Regardless, both companies have built strong followings across social platforms by promoting community engagement and development using various forms of social content. The key takeaway is the power that community has to build a brand and gain longtime, loyal customers. UGC plays a strong role in achieving such goals and understanding audience needs and wants is also vital to the success of brands of any size.

Orkut: The Rise and Fall of a Social Networking Giant

Orkut Profile Page

So You’ve Never Heard of Orkut?

Orkut was a social networking site launched in 2004 by Google employee, Orkut Büyükkökten (try saying that ten times fast). The site reigned supreme, especially in the Brazilian market, for ten years before it was replaced by social platforms that offered increased cross-platform engagement.

Orkut Login Page

The purpose of the site was to find and build social communities based on keyword searches, effectively connecting individuals with common characteristics, and placing them into groups. The site was popular among technology workers and students and was favored for finding groups based on classmates, friends, workplace acquaintances, and residential street location. What drew in customers was the platform’s competitive, invite-only structure, simple interface, member rating system, and “group” interface.

Myth-busting its Way to the Top

Orkut found success by fully understanding its target audience and applying that knowledge to the creation of a social platform. The digital sector is full of myths from the days of traditional marketing that no longer apply, including:

Orkut created a community-based platform that promoted connection and the development of trust between users. This led to reliable product and service recommendations to spread through relevant communities without the interference of advertising from the platform itself. Today, consumers are more likely than ever to place trust in purchase recommendations from others within their digital communities. By providing a platform to build such communities, Orkut was perfectly placed to build an understanding of customers based on niche interests and demographics.

Today, consumers are more likely than ever to place trust in purchase recommendations from others within their digital communities.

The resulting data aligns with the changing role of the digital consumer from spectator to participant in the marketing process. The world is demanding out with the old top-down approach to marketing and in with the new, community-driven participatory style. The more curated a branded message is for a niche target audience, the more likely that audience will engage with the brand. Gone are the days when the only interaction with brands came from spray-and-pray sources like television or radio.

Orkut Profile Page

What The Market Had to Offer

The other great advantage Orkut had was the advertising environment of its popular, Brazilian market. Brazil is one of the strongest markets for online retailers, ranking the fifth largest in the world. On top of that, the culture has developed a special connection to digital and social media. The country has banned outdoor marketing, so the online space has grown to fill the gap. 77% of users report a positive attitude toward online shopping, 80% use social platforms to research products, and trust in online recommendations is higher than any other source. Together, the result is a culture yearning for a trustworthy connection with digital brands and cross-platform experiences that promote ease of community engagement and purchasing options.

84% of people trust online reviews as much as friends.

Bloem, 2017

Falling From Grace

When building a successful marketing strategy, a quick and easy action plan is helpful to get started:

Design Framework Action Plan

Orkut successfully outlined its goals of building an exclusive, digital community through the use of groups. It quickly discovered its target audience was in Brazil and adapted to fit the market by developing an original social platform. Google, the parent company, provided all the necessary resources and policy structures required for effective growth. However, it is the lack of monitoring that lead to Orkut’s eventual downfall. Measuring includes qualitative and quantitative analysis of audience engagement data. If Orkut had kept up with monitoring it would have heard the rising demand for online video, increased ease of functionality, and media sharing from its Brazilian audience. When the platform was unable to fulfill the needs of its users, the communities broke up and the audience disappeared.

How to Succeed in Social Media Without Really Trying

The takeaway from Orkut’s short-lived empire is the importance of audience analysis, understanding, and continuous monitoring. If a brand understands its audience intimately and can keep up with constant changes, it will always have the knowledge and experience to curate products and services to fit its audiences’ needs. Without a strong brand-consumer relationship the success of a company becomes a 1 in a million shot in the dark. Many tools exist to increase customer comprehension, including; social listening platforms, customer engagement studies, simple surveys, and keyword tracking to stay on top of trends. Marketers can even hire data-collection companies to increase their consumer understanding.

The bottom line is customers do come first when it comes to creating a brand, product, or service that they want. In today’s digital world, audience information is freely and easily collected and consumers are more willing than ever to engage with brands in a personal context. They almost want to give marketers the information they desire…if only someone would ask them for it. success in today’s community-driven, social media landscape, knowledge is power and relationships are the keys to unlocking that power. So start building up both today!

Weixin: Social Media’s Rich Uncle Pennybags

Weixin Logo

Weixin (available with altered features and interface as WeChat outside of China) is an extremely popular social networking app in China that has found success by taking advantage of a few key social marketing strategies. First, Weixin was created with its target audience in mind. Not only is this a social media best practice, but it is also a strategy to transform audiences into active users. It seems logical; if a brand doesn’t know who it should market to it won’t know how to communicate to its potential customer and through which platforms…or even what voice to use! However, this simple step is often missed. 

Get In Touch With Your Audience

Social Listening

This is as easy as it sounds. Go where your target audience goes (in a digital sense) and find out what they care about, how they communicate, and what tools and platforms they use to engage with one another and their favorite brands. in essence, social listening is scouring the digital spare to find out as much as you can about your potential audience by playing “Simon Says” with them. Go where they go, do what they do, find out who they are, and above all…listen to what they have to say. The information gathered can greatly inform the success of any new brand, product, or service.

Social Listening Tools
https://martech.org/6-of-the-best-social-listening-tools-for-2019

Consumer Motivations

Okay, this is a buzzword, but don’t let it scare you. There are four main motivation types and understanding each, along with customer tastes and interests, is a great way to begin knowing your audience. 

  • Intrinsic Motivation: pleasure comes from the act of using the media
  • Identified Regulation: people use media because it is beneficial in the long term
  • External Regulation: people use media to avoid a negative outcome
  • Automotivation: people use media with no clear motivation

Understanding consumer motivations can help marketers craft brands and messages that fit motivations while satisfying needs and wants. Weixin found success because it understood its audience. 

Give The People What They Want

The target customers are young, urban smartphone users that crave an all-in-one tool for communication and social sharing. Users don’t want to search for a new application, service, or website with each new media need that arises. The tech-savvy Chinese use wants a simple interface with lots of functionality. Weixin offers both: users send a birthday card, update their status, read the news, make a purchase, open a store, or hail a taxi all from one location. Weixin also offers significant personalized customization options. This means that each user’s Weixin might look different, but will be optimized for each consumer’s preferred use. 

This is where Weixin is so brilliant. If the platform can offer users everything they need in one place, why would customers even search for other options? On top of that, the integrated functionality has made Weixin a habitual tool. It has become a normal part of the lives of its users. When a brand becomes a habit, it has customers for life! Weixin checks all the boxes and gives the people exactly what they want.

When a brand becomes a habit, it has customers for life! Weixin checks all the boxes and gives the people exactly what they want.

How To Know What The People Want

Weixin already has and will continue to conduct surveys, studies, and other forms of data collection from various sources to continually build its understanding of its audience. responded by creating a platform that combines all the features of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, eBay, phone services, money management, and sharing, and much, much more. Finally, Weixin is always growing; adding new functions and features as their audiences’ needs and motivations change. This point exemplifies Weixin’s dedication to understanding its audience and altering brand offerings to better fit its ever-changing audience.

Can Social Media Make Breast Cancer Awareness Sexy and Effective?

Photo by Klaus Nielsen from Pexels

            Going viral on social media is hard and the true secret is still elusive to many. The importance of uncovering such a secret becomes even more vital when the content in question is raising awareness for a good cause. Breast cancer awareness social media campaigns have been some of the most creative, engaging, and controversial in the last decade. More importantly, they have gone viral. A great example was the bra-color Facebook status that included the poster’s name on a single-colored background. The color was supposed to be the color of the bra the poster was wearing at the moment of posting. The campaign was expanded, asking women to post the words “I like it…” and fill in the blank with the place they store their purse. The result was suggestive posts like “I like it behind the couch” or “I like it on the floor.” Both campaigns were shared amongst female social media users via private message. The goal was to raise awareness for breast cancer through suggestive posts while keeping the men online in the dark as to the true meaning.

Going Viral

            Viral content requires three elements. First, the message must stand out. If a social message is not interesting, audiences have no reason to spread it. Second, the campaign must have a call to action. Social media users are bombarded with a multitude of messages each second. If a message has a good hook, the user may investigate further, but if there is no call to action, the message dies there. Third, participatory communication, or “any process through which people define themselves, what they need and how to get there, through dialogue,” is key to creating message advocates (Byrne et al., 2005). User-generated content(UGC) is the strongest form of participatory communication on social media (check out another great use of UGC by Warby Parker). Social users participate in social media and engage with content, but for content to go viral, users must adapt the message to fit their personal story, brand, aesthetic, or personality before sharing. Not only does this further engage the user with the message by crafting content around it, but it also changes the context of the message to better fit the audience the UGC will reach. This will hopefully result in action taken based upon the content of the message as the message itself is spread and shared to new audiences.

https://lundmarkadvertising.com/user-generated-content/

            The breast cancer awareness campaign stood out with its unique and suggestive approach messaging. Direct and private messages shared amongst females on social networks acted as the call to action to raise awareness for breast cancer research and also to offer the opportunity to engage further and make a difference by passing the message on. Finally, the format in which the sharing takes place is by creating a post and sharing it with a new community. That is strong UGC if ever I did see it! 

Who’s In Control?

            Last but not least, the call to action harnesses the power of locus of control and digital anonymity. Locus of control, or the belief or personality trait reflected in the ownership of control over life events, should be important to marketers. The goal of social messaging is to make audiences feel like they have control and are making a real difference. Not only does the breast cancer campaign spread awareness, but it also requires an act of social users to engage and pass the message on, giving the control of where and how far the message travels to social users. Another upside of garnering message support online is that users can easily show their support without going too far outside of their comfort zone. In the case of this campaign, it was easy for women to post a few words and a block color on their feed without baring their souls to the world. Both elements made the campaign easy to engage with, easy to share, and fun to create content for. The result was millions of shares and an insane amount of participation.

Photo by Cristian Dina from Pexels

Did You Achieve Your Goals?

            The one area the campaign falls short is it does not garner offline advocacy. The ultimate goal of social marketing should be to garner customer action outside of engaging with the content. The creation of UGC is powerful because it expands the reach of the message and further engages each user that creates content. However, the breast cancer awareness campaign was not connected to more actionable, offline opportunities to make a difference. Therefore, the campaign’s goal was simply to raise awareness. The question then becomes, does breast cancer research need more awareness? Breast cancer research has garnered the allocation of the entire month of October to awareness for the disease. Therefore, if the goal of the campaign was actually to raise awareness, then it succeeded. However, if the actual desired outcome of the campaign was to increase donations, volunteers, or other real-world, actionable support, then I think the campaign missed its mark. 

“The question then becomes, does breast cancer research need more awareness? Breast cancer research has garnered the allocation of the entire month of October to awareness for the disease. “

            Posters didn’t request that UGC include links to donation pages, volunteer signups, or even general informational content. This simple addition would have made the campaign even more powerful because it increases the ways audiences can engage, support, and advocate for breast cancer awareness. The concept of the campaign was strong, the execution eye-catching, but the outcome may have left something to be desired. The solution would be for marketers to start at the very beginning and identify a clear goal. Even if the intended goal wasn’t to garner offline advocacy, the effectiveness of the campaign almost demands that options for real-world engagement be included. We can all agree that actionable support in any form to find a cure for breast cancer is good support. If that support can come from a suggestive, social media campaign, why not milk it for all its worth?

Mahoney L. M., & Tang T. (2016). Strategic Social Media: From Marketing to Social Change. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118556900/

Warby Parker: How an Industry Newcomer Eliminated Customer Dissonance

https://www.warbyparker.com

Thanks to the internet…

Founded in 2010 by a group of innovative, college students at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Warby Parker (WP) revolutionized how consumers buy glasses. Instead of booking a distant appointment with an eye doctor and traveling to a showroom only to spend hundreds of dollars on a limited selection of frames, WP took full advantage of the digital space to create a new business model. Today, consumers can shop online through the WP website. The ease of use the Internet provides makes shopping with WP easy, convenient, and affordable.

Consumers can also take advantage of the Home Try-On Campaign to test multiple frames at no cost and return the ones that don’t work out. The Home Try-On campaign takes advantage of the direct-to-consumer model to limit the overall cost of frames and enhances each customer’s experience picking out frames.

Today, most consumers utilize social media when making a purchase decision, especially those native to the digital space. This means that, if WP is active on social media, it will automatically be placed in front of more eyes than brick-and-mortar-only establishments.

Sell More by Doing Good

By purchasing through Warby Parker, consumers take part in the company’s philanthropic efforts to donate a pair of glasses to someone in need for each new pair sold. By partnering with VisionSpring, Warby Parker has given away over 6.8 million pairs of glasses, creating yet another reason for consumers to give WP a try.

More than ever, consumers are becoming part of a globalized economy and a world that is more connected and socially aware of the situations of all peoples. This makes socially conscious marketing and business endeavors all the more attractive to consumers. It also offers another avenue of advertising with another story to tell, one of hope, happiness, and the life-changing gift of sight. This doubles WP’s social presence from UGC. Imagine the amount of traffic the company must get just from friends, family members, and strangers inspired by the personal story of a customer with an amazing Home Try-On experience to share or, even more powerful, the story of a person’s life-changing after received a free pair of glasses from Warby Parker!

More than 80% of the Fortune 500 companies market the CSR [corporate social responsibility] programs that they participate in, especially as cause marketing becomes more of a norm in business practices. (Mahoney & Tang, 2016)

Mahoney L. M., & Tang T. (2016). Strategic Social Media: From Marketing to Social Change. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118556900/

The Power of Social

Social media plays a big part in Warby Parker’s business model First, the Home Try-On campaign encourages consumers to share their WP experience with friends. This element converts customers into brand ambassadors, a technique proven to more effectively attract new customers. New business from referrals and positive reviews that act as brand advocation are highly effective forms of brand marketing.

By harnessing these strategies through the Home Try-On campaign, WP not only pioneered a unique experience for eyeglass buyers but also ensure that the customers’ needs were met and positive reactions shared in a way that physical retailers rarely experience. If WP had started as just another eyeglass storefront, they would not have had a chance in an already established market. Thanks to its young, passionate founders, WP harnessed new technology to reach its consumers on the platforms they already engaged with.

How Customers Keep One Another Engaged

Social engagement also acts as the backbone of WP’s business. Not only is the Home Try-On campaign highly shareable, but it is also engageable. Posting photos of oneself with new glasses is a big deal…glasses are an expression of each person’s personality and sharing that with the world is personal. What better way to attract new customers than through the story of a friend or family member.

This user-generated content (UGC) strategy extends WP’s reach beyond that of its immediate customers, but also to friends and family members of those its serves. 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation, which makes UGC more likely to result in a conversion. By creating conversational marketing opportunities on social media, WP utilizes pull marketing to attract interested customers instead of wasting time blasting out large-scale push marketing campaigns that are often wasted.

“88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.”

Anderson, 2014

Finally, WP is known for its high level of engagement with its customers through social media. Not only does the company encourage customers to participate in digital conversation with UGC, but it also answers questions, responds to comments and messages, and builds personalized relationships with consumers online. This personalized, online experience highlights the personalized nature of the company, its mission, and the values it holds for putting customers first.